


After the bridge

by twdeadfanfic



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 04:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twdeadfanfic/pseuds/twdeadfanfic
Summary: Imagine following Daryl after Rick blows up the bridge.Daryl crying and going away alone broke my heart, so I needed to write something like this. Short, hurt/comfort one.-shot. I hope you’ll like it.





	After the bridge

You were in shock, seeing the bridge blowing up, walkers falling from it as lit matches, and Rick… It couldn’t be real, it couldn’t be happening…

Michonne’s wails made you look at her as Carol and Maggie hold her, preventing her from running to the flames, the walkers, the mess.

It couldn’t be real. Your brain was having a hard time processing it but you felt a burning pain in your chest at the realization of what had happened.

Rick had blown up the bridge to stop the herds of walkers, sacrificing himself in the process. Of course, leave it to Rick do something like that for his people. But it shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have been like that. He couldn’t be gone.

You took in a shaky breath, feeling light-headed. You knew you should go to Michonne too but you couldn’t even look at her as she fell onto her knees, embraced by Carol and Maggie. You couldn’t deal with her pain, her broken heart, the idea of Rick being gone like that, and you looked away.

You saw Daryl a little away from there, standing where he had been shooting arrows to stop the walkers from getting to Rick. He was crying too, you thought, and he turned over to walk away.

You didn’t think you could offer Michonne too much and she had the other women, so you jogged to reach Daryl as he walked into the woods. You thought you’d lose him but he stopped at some point, his back to you.

“Daryl…” You were sure he had heard your footsteps but he wasn’t turning.

“Leave me alone!” He snapped, sounding so broken it hurt your heart even more.

A long time ago, when you had met before you knew how he really was, you had stayed clear from him, backing away when he lashed out. Not anymore, though. You knew him good enough.

You walked to him and wrapped your arms around him, snuggling against his back. He struggled, breaking away from your arms.

“Told you to leave me alone!” He yelled before turning his back to you again.

“I’m not going to. Not right now.”

Daryl scoffed at that, rubbing his eyes. “I told him to go to the bridge. That it couldn’t take the weight of all those walkers and it would fall.” He rasped after a moment of silence in which he didn’t even turn to face you.

“It seems we are better at building than what could be expected.” You surprised yourself joking darkly, your voice breaking at the end of the sentence, and just then you realized that you were crying too. It just didn’t make sense… Something like that wasn’t supposed to happen… Rick couldn’t be gone like that…

Daryl looked at you as if he couldn’t believe you would say that in such a moment, angry, but he seemed to soften a bit when he saw you crying.

“I just wanted to help Maggie end Negan. I just wanted to stop Rick from getting to Alexandria before it.” He whimpered and you reached out for him but he didn’t move closer. “Those herds weren’t supposed to join… Weren’t supposed to go to the camp…”

No, things weren’t supposed to go like that. Everything had happened at the same time, every wrong thing, and you should be used to it but no, no, it wasn’t fair.

“The saviors came to the camp, there were some shots, that’s what drew the herd to us.”

Daryl finally looked at you at that. “It’s everyone okay?”

“Yes, everyone is okay.”

Daryl nodded and looked away again. “I should have been here…shouldn’t have taken Rick away.”

“No, stop, don’t even go there.” You approached him, half expecting him to storm away from you, but he didn’t move. “None could know what was going to happen. Just a bunch of bad coincidences happening at the same time.” You swallowed hard, rubbing at your tears. “Just things going wrong again and again, just like always in our life.”

Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to say to Daryl when you wanted to comfort him, but it was how you felt, like the world didn’t want you to have good things, like you hadn’t suffered enough, like you hadn’t lost enough. It wasn’t fair.

Daryl looked at you and you couldn’t take the pain in his eyes. You reached out for him again and this time he didn’t pull away, letting you wrap your arms around him and pull him into a hug.

He hid his face on the crook of your shoulder as he cried and held you tight, almost making it hard to breathe, but you held him to you even tighter. Memories of that night after he lost Merle, when Daryl had held you just as tight, came to your mind.

Losing his brother had broken Daryl and now he had lost another. You knew how important Rick had been to Daryl, how much he meant to him. You wished to comfort him but you didn’t know how or if you could. You kissed his temple just held him a let him cry, running your fingers through his hair.

Eventually, after a long while of just holding each other, you lifted Daryl’s head gently. “We have to go back, okay?” He shook his head and buried his face on your shoulder again.

You let out a broken sigh and kissed the top of his head before making him look at you again. “We have to. We gotta be with Michonne, he needs us, we gonna help her through this, alright?”

You knew Daryl was going to need time to recover, lots of time, and that he was going to need time to be alone. But right then you weren’t going to leave him alone in the woods. You weren’t sure he was in the best state of mind to take care of himself. Honestly, you weren’t sure how he and Michonne were going to recover from something like this, but you would help them however you could.

This time Daryl nodded but he didn’t pull away from you, his arms still holding you to him. You gave him a weak smile and reached out to cup his face and wipe his tears before pressing a kiss to his check, surprised when he did the same to you, making you smile softly.

“I’m here for you, you know it right?” You told him softly. “No matter what, you got me. Always.”

Daryl didn’t say anything but nodded. You held him to you again for a second and then pulled away, reaching out to take his hand to lace your fingers and walk you both back to the camp.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! I hope you liked it! If you have a moment, please let me know your thoughts in the comments, your feedback makes my day! It seems I finally was able to write a short thing.
> 
> As always, English is not my first language so sorry if there are mistakes.


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